A husky safari in Lapland, resort by resort

View forward along the gangline of a husky team from the sled runners on a packed snow trail, with a second sled and driver ahead among snow-laden spruces — Most of a safari's price buys the programme around the ride; the ride itself is usually under an hour.

Lapland Handbook Staff Updated 18 September 2026 How we research this

The short answer

A self-driven husky safari of six to ten kilometres is published at around €196 in Rovaniemi, €225 in Levi, €235 in Ylläs and €249 in the Saariselkä area, so the resort you choose changes the price more than the operator does. Rovaniemi is the cheapest of the four and the most competitive. The northern and western resorts more often price children separately, charge a Christmas and February premium, and set stricter rules about who may drive.

A husky safari is sold in every Lapland resort with the same photographs and much the same words. The prices are not the same, and neither are the rules. If your dates are fixed but your resort is not, this is the part of the decision worth doing with the numbers out.

The same ride costs different money in different resorts

Take the most common product — a self-driven sled, six to ten kilometres, two people sharing — and read the ordinary-season adult price in four places.

Resort	Tour	Adult price
Rovaniemi	6–10 km, 45 minutes on the sled	€196
Levi	10 km	€225
Ylläs	6–10 km	€235
Saariselkä area	10 km	€249

That is a spread of about a quarter on the same activity, and it is the biggest single difference between the resorts. Rovaniemi is the cheapest of the four, which is what a market with many kennels within half an hour of one town looks like. The further north or west you go, the fewer kennels there are within reach of each resort, and the prices reflect it.

What the extra money does not buy is a longer ride. Levi’s ten-kilometre run is published at 45 to 60 minutes on the sled, and Rovaniemi’s six to ten kilometres at 45 minutes, which is the same order of time for the same order of distance. What a husky safari costs in Rovaniemi works the local prices out by the minute.

Children have their own fare in some resorts and not others

This is the difference that decides a family’s total, and it is not consistent.

In Rovaniemi and Ylläs, children have published fares. Bearhill prices teenagers and children separately from adults, and Ylläs Experience charges €185 for a child of six to eleven against €235 for an adult on its main tour. In Levi, the operator’s husky page gives one price per tour and no child fare at all, and the Saariselkä-area tour publishes an adult price only.

So a family of four is not simply four times the headline price, and the resort that looks dearest for two adults may not be the dearest for two adults and two children. Ask for the child fare in writing before you compare.

A high season exists in some resorts and not others

Ylläs Experience publishes two high-season windows, 13 December to 3 January and 31 January to 28 February, and charges about €30 more for an adult in both. In Rovaniemi, one kennel charges a few euros more from the end of November to 10 January. The Levi and Saariselkä pages checked for this article publish a single price with no seasonal band at all.

That matters most in February. A half-term week is high season in Ylläs and ordinary season in Rovaniemi, which can reverse the order of the table above for exactly the dates most families travel on.

Who is allowed to drive differs, and it is stricter than most expect

Nowhere lets a child drive. Beyond that the rules diverge.

Ylläs Experience is the strictest published here: only adults may drive, and anyone under eighteen sits in the sled. The Levi operator requires at least one adult driver on every sled and will let a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old drive with the guide’s approval. In Rovaniemi, Bearhill sets its self-drive age at seventeen.

If a teenager driving is the point of the trip, that single rule may decide the resort, and it is worth confirming with the kennel rather than the booking site.

How far you travel to the dogs

The kennel is rarely in the resort. The Levi operator’s kennel is about thirty kilometres away at Tepasto, and its programme runs two and a half hours for twenty to thirty minutes of sledding. Ylläs Experience’s half-day tour adds an hour of transfer in each direction, and its private farm tours do not include transfers at all.

That is not padding. It is why a half-day programme delivers well under an hour behind the dogs, and it is the same arithmetic wherever you book. The husky safari guide explains what the rest of the time is spent on.

Where to start

If the resort is still open, Rovaniemi is the cheapest of the four for the same ride, and it has the most kennels to choose between. If you are going to Ylläs or Levi anyway, price the child fares and the high-season dates before you assume the local tour is expensive, because on the right week the gap is small.

Questions people ask

Are transfers from the resort included?

Usually, but the distances differ. Lapland Welcome's Saariselkä-area tour includes return transfers from your hotel. The Levi operator collects from Levi centre and drives about thirty kilometres to its kennel at Tepasto. In Ylläs, transfers are included on the shared half-day tour, which adds an hour in each direction, but the private farm tours state that transfers are not included. In Rovaniemi, pickup is from selected points rather than every address. Check the pickup list before booking accommodation out of town.

Is a kennel visit cheaper if nobody wants to ride?

Much cheaper, and it exists in several resorts. The Levi operator sells a kennel visit with no sled ride at €89, and at Santa Claus Village the husky park charges €15 for an adult to walk round. Both are a fraction of a safari, and for a family with a small child who mainly wants to meet dogs they are often the better purchase. What you give up is the run itself, which is the part most adults remember.

What are the cancellation terms outside Rovaniemi?

They vary, and they are stricter than most people expect. Lapland Welcome charges the full price if you cancel within seven days of the tour in the Saariselkä area. Ylläs Experience and the Levi operator do not publish their terms on the tour pages checked for this article, so ask for them in writing before paying, particularly for the four-figure private tours. In Rovaniemi the terms are published, and the husky guides set them out.

When does the season run?

Roughly December to March everywhere, with the edges differing by resort and by kennel. The Levi operator lists its self-drive tours from December to March. In Rovaniemi one kennel opens its winter sled tours at the end of November and runs to early April, and sells a cart or sled tour before that. Ylläs Experience prices a high season that starts in mid-December. If you are travelling in November or April, confirm with the kennel that you are booking a sled rather than a cart, and that it runs that week at all.

Written by

Lapland Handbook Staff

Lapland Handbook is written by its editorial staff in Rovaniemi. Every price, age limit and group size in a comparison is read from the operator's own page and marked "Not stated" when the operator does not publish it. Each guide names who should not book, and says so when a competitor is the better choice.